Sorry, that argument is a silly one. Most of the illegal guns used in crimes in nyc and chicago are bought in the south and ferried up. Can’t have city by city or state by state gun control. Doesn’t work.

a nation in an internal arms race – I need guns to protect myself because everyone else out there has a gun. They get a machine gun, I need to get a machine gun. It just keeps going. A culture of individual over community – breakdown. 300 million guns and 11,000 gun murders a year. Can you get it in Norway? – yes – unstable nutter kills 76 – but the number gun murders per population is more than 10x higher in the US than Norway. So it’s complicated for sure, but there are too many guns and too easy to get one. But you don’t need to ban all of them – couldn’t do it anyway – technology always finds a way – you just need to make it harder

Pertaining to Ebert’s comments “I think the link is between the violence and the publicity”:
Is it not interesting how cigarette advertising was banned and movie studios once stated they would try to reduce smoking, all aimed at reducing the death toll of smoking.

Yet the presence of guns in movie ads is non-stop; Today’s NFL games are packed with “Gangster Squad” promos.

Thanks. I’m starting to think the answer (imho) will be a combination of mental health reform and benign gun control that doesn’t limit guns but instead limits the chances they are used for this type of crime.

I agree with Spicule that guns don’t need to be totally banned. Just make it harder for insane people & people who have criminal records to get them.

The U.S. culture has a lot of violence in it. Some is necessary for our military to be able to defend us. But we have a lot of violent video games & movies. However, it would not be good to censor these like some repressive country. It is complicated.

The violent nature of our culture often shows up in the situation of political discussions. Too often these are the verbal equivalent of the school shooting. People sometimes try to verbally insult & annihilate anyone who disagrees with them.

It is good to see some honest discussion about possible solutions here.

Tighter restrictions.
1) No semi or full auto for personal ownership.
2) One gun per person allowed max.
3) All but one magazine of ammo must be stored at authorized gun club/org or with police.
4) Mandatory background checks before purchase.
5) Re-investigations AFTER purchase on some interval…similar to security clearances.
6) Magazine capacity restrictions.
7) No guns allowed for anyone with person diagnosed w/ mental disorder living in household.
8) Expand mental health services & options for families (http://gawker.com/5968818/i-am-adam-lanzas-mother).
9) Existing guns and ammo legally owned beyond the single allowed must be stored at authorized facility outside of residence.
10) Mandatory gun safety classes completed prior to receipt of gun.

This won’t solve every angle but nothing will. Is it reasonable for a person living with someone with some form of mental dysfunction to have 4 or 5 guns, including semis, and who knows how much ammo? I don’t know if shooter Lanza was formally diagnosed with a mental condition but this aspect needs further consideration.

And while we’re at it lets not leave Hollywood and the RIAA off the hook.
11) Mandatory X rating for any movie, video game, song/albumn that is judged to contain excessive violence. Noone under 21 allowed to purchase – much like alcohol.

What is excessive violence? Good question but its like porn – we (collectively) know it when we see it. At least the “normal” people do. I’m plum full out of sympathy for the so-called avant grade of society that love to “challenge” our sensibilities with their offensive trash. Specific criteria could be arrived at with some reasonable discussion (which would probably have to exclude Hollywood and most of the entertainment industry from participation as they have repeatedly demonstrated their reckless disregard for reasonableness for decades). Obviously, this would be controversial and difficult to implement but let’s not kid ourselves any longer. It isn’t just the guns. Deranged people are pulling the triggers.

>7) No guns allowed for anyone with person diagnosed w/ mental disorder living in household.

I do think we need caution on restricting guns for a family based upon certain members. While the mass-shootings drawing attention have been from those with severe mental disorders, most gun violence is from those who become angry or lack morals.

The restriction of the Brady bill already prohibit those who are “Has been adjudicated as a mental defective or committed to a mental institution” from purchase or possession.

I like where you’re going with this.
Any person or politician that doesn’t call for an immediate ban on all things that cause more death than guns, actually hates guns more than they love life…. gonna be a long list of “ban-ship”

You don’t need to ban it (alcohol) to prevent car crashes from alcohol, just make it harsher if you do and harder for teens to drink and drive. We have graduated licenses, take the car away for 30 days on the spot, .05 limit, first time fines up to $4000, and more road-checks. Most of these came to British Columbia two years ago and fatalities are down 40+% and DUI are lower. Not zero – never will be as long as we have alcohol, but that’s not the point. It’s just tougher to commit the crime and harsher if you do. Not exactly the same situation, but similar principles. Obviously if you want to kill a bunch of people and then yourself, you aren’t too worried about harsher penalties so you need to make it tougher to commit the crime in the first place.

Pretty sure all those mass shooters drove a car to the site of their shootings. Better get rid of cars. I think they were all probably wearing shoes, too, so now let’s all go barefoot. We practically do that in airports and no one’s been shoebombed since we started doing that. Must work, huh?

Hitler also supported the building of autobahns….essentially interstate highways. Should we tear them up now also?

How many ppl in America wake up to be confronted with a Benghazi-like situation where they need immediate access to lots of weapons and ammo? I’m thinking the number is pretty small. But that’s just me.

Argentina was a very rich 1st world country when it happened. It turned into a civilian nightmare. Firsthand accounts from Argentina will make it very clear that we could find ourselves in a Benghazi-like situation sooner than you would likely imagine.

Ohhh, I can just imagine the folks at the (Canadian) Coalition for Gun Control drooling at that prospect, haha…

Nuclear power wasn’t banned after Chernobyl, space exploration wasn’t halted after Challenger exploded, you didn’t stop selling furtalizer and motor oil after Oklahoma City bombing, etc, etc. It’s very easy and seductive to try and find an easy and quick solution to dramatic, tragic events, but it’s just human nature to do so. Especially if the “solution” is something we’d like to see happened anyway, and it doesn’t affect us in any any (most people who’ll cry for gun bans here don’t own or like guns, want to see them gone ANYWAY, so a gun ban wouldn’t affect them or their way of life. It’s very easy to ask OTHERS to make sacrifices for the greater good, isn’t it?).

I am not a US citizen so I don’t have the right to comment or advise, but I think now would be a good time for the USA to do some serious soul searching.
It’s not only guns but violence pervades the entire culture, from music to movies.
Outright bans never work but it would be good to see some ideas on how much is too much, some line in the sand that civilized people stay back from.

Other countries hear the same music, watch the same mindless violence and manage to maintain control. How we de-condition ourselves to fight with guns will require a stronger moral tone from elders, teachers and social/political leaders.

Moral speaking in public has become a target for ridicule and viewed as intrusive to personal freedom, change here may be a good start.

I am a US citizen living in the Philippines. Philippine citizens are allowed to own guns, watch violent movies from Hollywood, and listen to music from the US, yet the only mass killing I know of was by a politicians private army in 2009. Poverty keeps families close here, much more so than in the affluent US. I don’t know if there is a solution to the mass killings in the US. Weapons will always be available for the right price.

So, in the interest of clarity on the issue, here is the situation in Canuckistan:

3 classes of weapons; i) unrestricted = essentially sporting long guns; ii) restricted = handguns, some non-sporting long guns; iii) prohibited = assault weapons; machine guns; RPG’s , things of that nature. I own 7 firearms, 5 long guns and 2 hand guns. I require an FAC to purchase guns and ammunition – firearms acquisition and posssession certificate = good for 10 years. Within the last year, mandatory registration of unrestricted weapons (sporting long guns) was dropped after a disasterous and expensive ($3B+) implementation over more than a decade (original gov’t cost est was $2MILLION!!!). To own a restricted weapon, I require a restricted weapons FAC – requires an application process with references; police record check, etc. All restricted weapons are registered. To transport a restricted weapon, I must notify the police with the transport route and reason for transport. Is it a bit of hassle = yes. Does it infringe on my ability as a presumably sane, non-criminal from owning a firearm – slightly. Yes I am in favour of restricted weapon application for ownership and registration of the same. But we do not have the 2nd amendment here and a tradition of gun ownership going back to the minutemen and a penchant for modern day militarism.

Disagree. If laws/regulations are the reason, then we just need to outlaw shooting people.

It’s a cultural thing. Video games, Hollywood, TV shows all make it look cool to go out guns a-blazin’.

I also think the way that our schools over-react to a couple of kids having a tussle hurts, too. Most of these shooter are young, white, intelligent and outcasts. They’ve been picked on and instead of being allowed to settle the matter in the schoolyard the way things used to be done, they bottle it up until they explode. You have to let the steam off the boiler or it will blow up.

There are plenty of countries with much higher gun ownership rates which don’t see any increase in violent crime. You just choose to look at the data points which allow you to draw a straight line with the slope you want.

To rephrase your argument: I have a friend who is tall and smart. I also have a friend who’s short and dumb. So I need to give my short child growth hormones to make sure (s)he becomes/stays smart…

There are interesting and intelligent conversations to have about guns, gun control, etc, but casually making conclusive statements like you did, without any supporting evidence, is nothing more than proof by repeated assertion.

Lol, my UofToronto prof once said “if it satisfies three examples then that’s almost a proof.” So many people who preach the benefits of gun control resort to that approach…

You make a good point. But that doesn’t mean the flip side is true either- that gun control won’t work. If it hasn’t been tried or studied in the American environment then there is no proof it won’t work to some degree.

I can’t speak to this with any authority. However my parents emigrated from England (I’d say when but fly would ban me for being over 47-1/2), and their experience was that gun ownership when they emigrated was exclusively for the privileged class, and certainly not in keeping with the American notion of an armed militia of the “common”.

Look up the stats on mass murders. Historically, it is pretty much only white males doing it. So he has a point. Charles Whitman, Columbine, the Luby shootings in Temple, Batman Murders, etc. And yes I am a white male. Very white.

I don’t disagree it is a white male phenomena. This is my point: Add up all the people killed due to white mass murderers over the last 20 years and the total will be less than black on black crime in Chicago this year.

No restrictions on semi-auto, please. We need that for the zombie apocalypse or its equivalent: a breakdown of civil order when ‘bargain hunters’ start working through your neighborhood, or for the random 3AM adrenalin dump when you find 2 or 3 armed intruders downstairs.

Gun control is the easy answer. What no one wants to come to grips with is why our society is rotting to the very core. I don’t believe people care about each other. People no longer want to take responsibility for themselves. Their family. Even their neighbors. The community is almost dead. All this leads to people calling for the government to intrude into our lives because we are too lazy to do it ourselves. Let government handle it. And it will because it craves more power. The left loves this current crisis because they can grab more control of our freedom and we will happily give it them. The right sure destroyed many freedoms in the name of the 9/11 crisis and we were happy to give it them. If we want to live a free life we have to stop the government, left and right, from taking away our liberties. If we don’t stop it here then we will be no better than the people living under Stalin, Mao, Hitler or any number of tyrants. Because tyranny by our government is where we are headed.

America was founded with a fundamental distrust of government. We owned guns to protect ourselves from the gov’t, should it attempt to move to tyranny.

This attitude and belief still persists in the USA, especially in the people who have made their own way, without the gov’t. Those who depend on the gov’t don’t think much about having to protect themselves from it.

If there is a serious discussion among our elected representatives about banning guns, you will see the spark of revolution take hold. It will not be pretty.

Keep in mind there are tens of millions of Americans who believe that our 2nd amendment right is primarily to keep the gov’t in check, not our fellow would be robbers, rapists, etc.

Gun control of some sort is only one part of it obviously – multifaceted problems require multilayered solutions. But I do think you need some control of how many weapons are out there and who gets access to them and how they get to handle them.

I’m assuming that Fly’s post means confiscation of existing guns in the citizenry.. That would not work, especially in the rust belt.. Can you imagine trying to confiscate guns in Texas.. lol. Civil War and a huge portion of the country would join the fight.. You cannot trust the government with implementing sensible legislation over the long run, thats the problem. Look at the War on Drugs, etc. Where does it stop? Eventually, we will all be blowing in a breath tube before starting our car, having doctors order our kids with ADD or Twin Seperation Anxiety to take medication, etc..The Police State grows and grows… Anything that helps preserve our freedom should be held sacred. I have a 5 and 7 year old daughter, so of course the tragedy in CT is beyond heartbreaking, I cried for those families, but I also have to keep in mind the slippery slope of giving up our freedoms with the concern that in 50 years my grandchildren could face a tyrannical government if we aren’t careful of what we ask for today. Sensible gun control should be legislated, but what happens when it becomes not sensible as we slowly accept what used to be not acceptable.

For this to work it would need to be the strongest Federal Law EVER enforced by every state, city, country and town to make carrying a gun outside of the home illegal and punishable by prison without any way for people to buy their way out.

If guns are banned at the federal level, a state can open it up or a city.

Best idea re gun control: Don’t ban anything but require that all purchasers must purchase insurance. The effect is twofold: first, increases the price of purchase (i.e. reduced demand) and second, puts the onus of background checks on the insurance company. Let the private market deem who is “fit” to own a gun.

However, I think we in America have been far removed from the reality of chaos and the breakdown of society, which can and does happen. Again, see the Argentinian example. Should something like that occur in America (don’t think that it can’t) I will want more than a 10 round clip.

However, there are military people that I respect that would agree with you. So I don’t know. I’m torn on this issue.

Thats the tough issue Wood, not just for self defense but keeping a counter balance of the threat of a Tyrannical government sometime way down the road. The political landscape can change dramatically after events that are certain to come, hyperinflation, etc.

However, with fully 1/3rd of a citizenry being armed, and some heavily so, it makes the gov’t think twice. It would be a bloody, awful battle, and consideration has to be given to the number of soldiers who would side with the citizens. Kinda makes one wonder about the millions or billions of bullets the dept. of homeland suckery was supposed to have ordered.

I doubt I could afford a AK on the black market if society had broken down. That’s why you own it now, just in case.

I agree your approach is sensible. What happens when something not sensible happens?

Sometimes things happen that are not sensible, and you have to be prepared for those, or it will be too late.

This shit didn’t happen thirty years ago. But then Jimmy Carter did away with mental institutions. Now the mentally ill are given a pill and allowed to integrate into society.

So it’s only going to ge worse and no place is safe because if a kid takes Ritalin he is a ticking time bomb.

Before the liberals tinkered with the social fabric of America we were safe and crime free. Thats why none of you will ever see America as it was, it’s dead and over with, time to move on.
And so carry a pistol with you at all times and be prepared to use it because no one gives a shit anymore.

Something changed in the 1980s: these senseless mass murders started to happen with increasing frequency. People were shocked when James Huberty killed twenty-one strangers in a McDonald’s in San Ysidro, California in 1984, and Patrick Purdy murdered five children in a Stockton, California schoolyard in 1989. Now, these crimes have become background noise, unless they involve an extraordinarily high body count (such as at Virginia Tech) or a prominent victim (such as Rep. Gabrielle Giffords). Why did these crimes go from extraordinarily rare to commonplace?

For a while, it was fashionable to blame gun availability for this dramatic increase. But guns did not become more available before or during this change. Instead, federal law and many state laws became more restrictive on purchase and possession of firearms, sometimes in response to such crimes.2 Nor has the nature of the weapons available to Americans changed all that much. In 1965, Popular Science announced that Colt was selling the AR-15, a semiautomatic version of the M-16 for the civilian market.3 The Browning Hi-Power, a 9mm semiautomatic pistol with a thirteen-round magazine, was offered for sale in the United States starting in 1954,4 and advertised for civilians in both the U.S. and Canada at least as early as 1960.5 If gun availability does not explain the increase of mass public murders, what else might?

At least half of these mass murderers (as well as many other murderers) have histories of mental illness. Many have already come to the attention of the criminal justice or mental health systems before they become headlines. In the early 1980s, there were about two million chronically mentally ill people in the United States, with 93 percent living outside mental hospitals. The largest diagnosis for the chronically mentally ill is schizophrenia, which afflicts about 1 percent of the population, or about 1.5 percent of adult Americans.6 A 1991 estimate was that schizophrenia costs the United States about $65 billion annually in direct and indirect costs.7

UW law professor Michael Scott has looked at the psychological profiles of the gunman in these mass shootings. He qualifies most as “disturbed” in one way or another, with a number of them seeking vengeance for some perceived alienation from society.

“Predicting future activity and future dangerousness is inherently difficult, but nonetheless, we can identify people who are in some form of mental crisis and try to intervene early on,” Scott explained.

That said, Scott believes a number of factors have contributed to a recent spree of mass killings across the country, with five widely publicized shootings in the last six months.

“It’s not uncommon to see a spade of these where one follows another one fairly soon after,” Scott said.

When I was in school the teachers filtered out anyone who was not properly socialized. I recall several classmates who were jerked out of school never to be seen again. The crazy went to sanitoriums, the retarded went to mental retardation centers and criminals were sent to juvenal detention.
Now schools have become day care centers and our children are taught to accept everyone as equal, what a load of shit.

I concur. If all schools have at least one arm guard, or a teacher assigned to carry licensed firearm, blood bath will be minimized. But the one assigned to carry firearm must be a well-trained & experienced gun enthusiast, not someone who pees on his pant when he hear live gunshot going around.

The word ‘might’ in your statement is crucial. After every tragedy the thought of a lone hero with a gun preventing said tragedy gets brought up.

Every. Single. Time.

Yet when shit hits the fan none of these Rambo wannabees are anywhere to be found. Besides, no matter how many hours you spend at the gun range you have no idea how you will react in a situation like this. Not unless your range comes equipped with targets that shoot back.

True. Don’t forget the shooter was also counting on no one shooting him back; hence the choice of shooting location. If a female school teacher was brave enough to lie to the shooter in an extreme situation to save the kids or stand in the way b/w the shooter and the kids to sacrifice him/herself, a lone gunman could also pump him/herself up for a gun fight. All it takes is to lose one round against the shooter and you change the dynamic of the situation. Even if you miss, the shooter now know someone is shooting back! Fight or flight? the shooter would know that he was no longer in total control.

Outright gun prohibition will create its own problems, much like with alcohol and drugs. We choose to continue drug Prohibition for reasons of perceived public safety. But drugs are still widely available and a criminal class manufactures and sells them.

Reasonable arguments on both sides for/ against more gun regs but not addressing the mental health aspects of this and the entertainment/media industry’s culpability will result in missing the mark, so to speak.

On a separate topic, did you hear that Hillary Clinton got a concussion? Now she can’t testify on Benghazi this week. It will en rescheduled. Wanna bet that the concussion caused her to lose her memory?

WASHINGTON—In the wake of yesterday’s gruesome mass shooting that claimed the lives of 27 people, including 20 schoolchildren, the United States ratified a new constitutional amendment this afternoon guaranteeing American citizens the right to live life in a perpetual state of abject horror. “The provisions of the 28th Amendment will fully protect the right of all individuals to spend every waking moment utterly terrified at the thought of a deranged stranger with a semiautomatic combat rifle gunning them down,” said House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), explaining that the measure also permits Americans to suffer panic attacks anytime their loved ones go to work, school, malls, or virtually any other public location. “In addition, the new amendment prevents the government from ever infringing on a citizen’s inalienable right to lie awake at night visualizing the images of crying children being ushered out of a school and wondering where it could happen next.” The new amendment comes on the heels of numerous other proposed changes to U.S. law, including a highly contested bill that would protect the right of Americans to ignore a widespread, deadly problem until it is far too late.

NEWTOWN, CT—Following today’s mass shooting that left 20 young children dead at a Connecticut elementary school, numerous sources across the country reported that their government-protected right to own a portable device that propels small masses of metal through the air at lethal rates of speed is completely worth any such consequences. “It’s my God-given right and a founding principle of this country that I be able to own a [piece of metal that launches other smaller pieces of metal great distances, one after the other], and if a few deaths here and there is the price we have to pay for that freedom, then so be it,” said Lawrence Crane of nearby Danbury, CT, who is such a staunch advocate of the portable deadly-pellet-flinging apparatuses that he keeps multiple versions of such mechanisms in his home, often carries one with him, and is a member of a club whose sole purpose is to celebrate these assembled steel things and the small bits of metal they send flying. “Sure, it’s sad that a few kids died, but it’s far better than the tyranny that would result if the government came and took away all our [mechanical contraptions that make a lot of little pointy chunks of metal go through the air fast]. Can you even imagine what kind of horrible world that would be?” The man added that if the events that unfolded today led lawmakers to question his ability to possess any such items of steel and lead, authorities would have to “pry the [wholly inanimate mechanical object, nothing more, nothing less] from [his] dead hands.

WASHINGTON—Following the fatal shooting this morning at a Connecticut elementary school that left at least 27 dead, including 20 small children, sources across the nation shook their heads, stifled a sob in their voices, and reported fuck everything. Just fuck it all to hell.

All of it, sources added.

“I’m sorry, but fuck it, I can’t handle this—I just can’t handle it anymore,” said Deborah McEllis, who added that “no, no, no, no, no, this isn’t happening, this can’t be real.” “Seriously, what the hell is this? What’s even going on anymore? Why do things like this keep happening?”

Continued McEllis, before covering her face with her hands, “Why?”

Despairing sources confirmed that the gunman, armed with a semiautomatic assault rifle—a fucking combat rifle, Jesus—walked into a classroom full of goddamned children where his mother was a teacher and, good God, if this is what the world is becoming, then how about we just pack it in and fucking give up, because this is no way to live.

I mean, honestly, all 315 million Americans confirmed.

“Well, I suppose we have to try to pick up the pieces and make some sort of sense of this tragedy and—you know what? Fuck it, I can’t do this,” said Connecticut resident Michael Zaleski, his remarks understandable given the circumstances, because, holy shit, what else can one say? “I’m sorry, but I can’t fucking do this. Can you? Can anyone?”
Witnesses said the gunman fired at least 100 rounds during his deadly rampage, which, according to children in the school—goddamnit, how? How? Twenty children. Dead. In a fucking school.

No. No, no, no.

“I just feel so [why does it even matter what this person said when no words can bring 20 dead kids back to life?]” said some person who, just like everyone else, is completely unable to process or handle any of this. “It’s awful. Just too awful to bear.”

Americans reported feelings of overwhelming disgust with whatever abhorrent bastard did this and with the world at large for ever allowing it to happen, as well as with politicians, with the NRA, and above all with their own pathetic goddamn selves, sitting in front of a fucking computer instead of doing fucking anything to help anyone—Christ, as if that were even fucking possible, as if anyone could change what happened, as if the same fucking bullshit isn’t going to keep happening again and again and fucking again before people finally decide it’s time to change the way we live, so what’s the point? What the hell is the goddamned point?

And if the country hadn’t become so damned politically correct, we’d still be calling these people insane, crazy, etc. Its not that much different from our unwillingness to call the Muslim guy who shot up Fort Hood a terrorist.

We are so scared to hurt someone’s feelings, and often, in exchange for not having our feelings hurt, we have mayhem, instead.

How are you all defining “semi-automatic”? Because last I checked, the difference between chambering a pump action round or a revolver round is negligible next to a semi-automatic round. I guess your average mass murderer would have really fit forearms before putting the gun in their own mouths…

This is getting ridiculous. Yet no one mentions that, once again, another mass murder has taken place in a gun free zone – demonstrating once more that gun free zones are basically huge targets for the depraved.

The phrasing of your question is politically incorrect in that the political will for such an idea does not even remotely exist. Perhaps if you had asked, “Should the USA have stricter gun control laws?”, then you would be discussing what is not only politically viable, but a virtual certainty.

I predict that not only will the assorted “black guns” be outlawed, but that there is not going to be a grandfather clause this time. Existing weapons of this sort will be confiscated. It isn’t going to happen today or even next week. But it is coming, quite possibly in this final term of Obama. OTOH, the entire issue could be co-opted by Bernanke’s imminent failure.

EDIT BUTTON: You have one for your blog postings, yet you deny it to the masses? That is pure elitist horseshit! Also, the inability to edit comments (i.e. improve them), detracts from the quality of the commentary.

As jaw-dropping as some of the gun-related stats are, in many cases they aren’t classified properly, which makes it hard to draw any meaningful conclusions and correlations.

Not all shootings are ‘created equal’. If a would be rapist is shot (and even killed) by a potential victim, that incident ends up a part of the ‘gun-related death’ statistic, but shouldn’t this one go ‘in the ‘plus column’ for gun ownership as a means of protecting oneself? This story was making the news early this year http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2082210/Sarah-McKinley-Teen-mom-shoots-dead-intruder-week-babys-father-died-cancer.html What do you think would have happened to this girl if she didn’t have a gun to protect herself? As much as proponents of gun control would like everyone to believe, it’s not a simple issue. Those who site that gun-related crimes went down dramatically after guns were outlawed in Australia should also note the – rather dramatic – increase in other crimes (specifically burglaries and robberies).

Banning semi-automatic weapons won’t solve anything either. If properly trained, one can do just as much damage with ANY gun.

Mental health and keeping the guns out of the hands of unstable individuals should be the focus here. But mostly mental health. Obviously the details on Newton are still coming out, but this kid seemed unstable enough to do a lot of damage with or without guns. There are (unfortunately) plenty of ways to murder other human beings, and it’s (again, unfortunately) is even easier when it comes to people who can’t protect themselves, not to mention little kids. And as with many problems plaguing this society, this one started at home. It’s unfortunate that the shooter’s mother lost her life, but having seen that her son suffered from some sort of mental illness, teaching him to shoot should have been the last thing she should have done, not to mention allowing him access to her arsenal.

I do agree with the mental health, but it won’t happen. Mental health is a disgrace in this country- but no one is going to pay for it. However, I’m not sure one story of self defense really holds up compared to number of criminal gun murders in the US yearly. I just don’t see the need for so many people to have guns. In the end though, it won’t fucking matter. Nothing will get done, and we are certain to see more random mass killings in 2013, including innocent children. So like I said, what’s the goddamn point. Just hope it is not your community next.

Did you really bring up a ‘not sure ONE story of self defense really holds up’ argument? That was OBVIOUSLY just one example of it. My point being that statistics aren’t broken down properly in appropriate categories (harmful vs ‘helpful’, such as justified use in case of self-defense).

The answer lies in technology as always. Create devices that make guns inoperable within 100 yards of schools and dunkin donuts.You can’t undo what’s already done but you can make it obsolete and that’s basically the same thing.

That’s what they do in Israel. They learned the hard way. Now we are learning the hard way, but we could have learned from them, but did not. Most if not all of those people would be alive today had our stupid law allowed them top protect themselves & students

I believe that semi-automatic weapons that have the capability of firing clips of 6 bullets or more should be considered for banning. Also there is no need for armour piercing bullets such as the ones used by the gunman responsible for the massacre in Newtown to be so easily available.

All the bullshit about how we’ve lost our moral bearings is really too much to bear. This isn’t about individual responsibility and ethics. The state exists because it ends the perpetual war amongst individuals and corporate entities. It is the great innovation of Western culture–this primarily because it overcomes the hereditary/monarchical/plutocratic corruption of earlier forms of rule.

It’s far from perfect and can easily become a totalitarian state. But the fantasy that your gun keeps you free is naive at best, disingenuous and cynical at worst. You don’t have the freedom to threaten others with 30round sprays. If that is the only way you feel empowered to exist in this society and earn yourself a modicum of freedom, you’re a dangerous loser.

And the fact that the killer’s mother was a zerohedge style “prepper” just goes to show you who the maniacs are.

What a stupid question. All you ever do is try to stir the pot. Why not ask a real question to elicit a real discussion. Like “Should automatic, semi automatic and assault weapons as well as high volume clips (more than 10 bullets) be banned? “

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